


Never Be The Same

by joely_jo



Series: An Ever-Fixed Mark [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1938468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joely_jo/pseuds/joely_jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for a prompt provided by Starkfish/SomeEnchantedEve - 'Seeking Solace'. When your world implodes, what is left?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Be The Same

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeEnchantedEve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/gifts).



Never Be The Same

 

They are walking at sunset along a sheep path, somewhere on the moor south of Winterfell. Cat doesn’t really know where they are – she’s never bothered to go beyond the walls of the vast Stark family estate, except to get in her car and drive to Harrogate or Ilkley or York, but Ned had insisted. All she knows is that it’s away from the eyes and the talk and the pointing fingers. The sun is still hot, and her feet are scuffing in the dust of the path, worn dry by weeks without rain and the sort of blaring summer days that are quite alien in this part of the world.

For the first time in days, there’s a slight breeze and it lifts Ned’s hair and rustles the heather of either side of them.  They are surrounded by wide open countryside, no buildings, no trees, just endless rolling moorland and a sky bigger than she’s ever seen in her life.

If it wasn’t for what they are escaping, she would think this heaven.

The other side of a dry stone wall, Ned takes her hand and pulls her down to sit beside him on the spongy embankment. A pair of sheep turn to watch them lazily, decide they are no threat, then return to pulling at the grass.

For the longest time, they sit perfectly still, perfectly silent, staring at the reddening sky. Grey night clouds are curled like cats along the horizon and as they watch, they shift and turn through a dozen different shapes before they settle down for the night. Catelyn breathes in deeply, trying to stop the cry that’s building instinctively in her throat, the tears that bud up whenever she thinks about it all. Somehow, though, Ned senses how adrift she is. He leans back on his hands and turns to look at her. “Are you all right now?”

She nods her head. “Yeah… fine.”

The redness just below her left eye will be a bruise come the morning, she knows. His blow hadn’t hurt – not really – and of course the bruise will fade in time, but the impact will remain. Things will never be the same again. She reaches up and absentmindedly presses the skin, feeling for the heat, the swelling.

“Leave it,” he tells her, in the voice she knows he uses when he’s standing up in court, as he reaches to still her hand, then takes hold of her chin so he can angle her face and have another assessing look at the damage. “It’s nothing, Cat,” he assures her. “I’m sure you won’t even be able to see it in the morning.”

It’s a pleasant lie, but she smiles at it anyway.      

He holds her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he says for perhaps the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours. The words have become something of a mantra and she wonders if by saying them, he is trying to excuse everything they have done.

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “You can stop saying sorry. I don’t blame you.”

A frown furrows his brow and he looks away, directly into the sun. He doesn’t even squint. Her words are the truth, yet she knows how he struggles to believe them. They had both walked willingly into it, but it had been he who had initiated it, he who had kissed her first. He had never struck her as the type and she’d spent what seemed like a thousand sleepless nights thinking that they would never scale the wall that lay between them . But then, they’d found themselves alone in the kitchen, after everyone else had retired to bed, and a touch had become an embrace, a kiss and then…

That had been the week before Christmas, and the next seven months had been a whirlwind of illicit meetings and the kind of sex she’d thought didn’t happen outside of the movies. It had made her happier than she’d been in years. Until yesterday, when Brandon had come back early from his business trip to find them naked in the shower and everything had imploded like a supernova.

It hurt even to think about it. They should have been more cautious, more conscious. Hell, they should’ve kept their hands off each other in the first place and not been so fucking stupid.

She hears him sigh. It would be easy to be angry with him, easy to blame him, like he almost seems to want, but she knows that it would achieve nothing but open up the wound again. If there is anything to be salvaged from this horrible mess, they are going to have to stick together.

But there will still be a bruise.

Before them, the clouds are layering up, misty dragons spreading wings of red. “Red sky at night…” he murmurs.

“Shepherd’s delight,” she finishes. Then sighs. “Except I don’t think tomorrow is going to be a delight. Not at all.”

Ned grunts.

Silence holds.

It feels a little like they are in the eye of the storm and Catelyn realises that despite the chaos they have brought upon themselves, she is quite numb. It seems harsh to say that she no longer cares what happens, but there is some truth in that. Nothing could be worse than what has already happened.

Slowly, Ned eases his position so his shoulder is pressing up against hers, while one hand slides around her back and she leans into him. If wishes were horses, she would stay out here all night, but she knows that won’t help at all. Brandon may have driven off in a fury, but he is sure to return and then the storm will be back to full strength once again. He lets her rest her weight against him, still saying nothing. She doesn’t know what he plans to tell his brother when they see one another again, but she knows that Ned can be as hard as a rock when it comes to the things he cares about. He had hated seeing her side-lined while Brandon played away with half a dozen young interns or girls he had met on business trips and more than once had threatened to confront his brother. Catelyn had always stopped him, if only because deep down, she felt a kind of hypocrisy in his objection. If Brandon was such a honourless man for breaking his marriage vows, what did that mean for the two of them? After all, Catelyn had sworn those vows just the same.      

She turns to him. His soft grey eyes are fixed somewhere in the middle distance and he is lost in thought. It is a tenuous position they now inhabit, full of doubt and uncertainty and racked by guilt. It’s almost too much for her to bear alone, yet still he holds his silence. She wonders if he is thinking the same things she is.

She brings her hand up to her face again and touches her cheekbone where Brandon’s hand had connected. Her head is suddenly filled once again with the sound of that horrible slap, her gasp of shock and the crunch as Ned’s fist had landed on his brother’s jaw. The curses that had rent the air. The shaking, the crying and the blood an angry spatter on that cream carpet.

“Leave it,” he says again. His hand catches hers and he tugs it firmly downwards. A little angered by his tone, she snatches her hand from out of his grasp and instead threads her own fingers through his in a pincer-like clasp, pressing down on his knuckles. She sees the wince as her action provokes his own injury.

“You should get that checked at the hospital,” she tells him.

“It’s fine.”

“Nevertheless, you should.”

He doesn’t reply. Darkness is starting to fall now and all the colours are draining away, the watercolour sky leaching into the grey moorland. It’s almost hypnotic. His tension is almost palpable, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, nor does he move. His eyes fix on the redness that tinges her cheekbone, then drop to her lips and then he is leaning into her and pressing his mouth against hers. For a moment, she hesitates, then just as has always been the case, resistance drains from her and she sags into him.

He reaches up with his free hand and caresses her cheek and as he does so, pauses. The thought crosses her mind that he’s going to stop and withdraw and she realises that despite all the feelings that are tying knots in her stomach, she does not want him to. This might be all she has left now and she is suddenly consumed by a desperate need to not lose it. Defiantly, she presses her mouth harder against his.

When they finally break apart, she feels his breath rushing next to her cheek. She opens her eyes and for a moment, everything seems dark and invisible and she reaches out, unseeing, to run her fingers over his bearded cheeks, then down over his shoulders, urgency building within her. She wants him and it seems that he wants her too.

His hands are at the fly of his jeans and in a blur of hitched clothing and hungry grasps, they are suddenly on the ground, her legs wrapped around his hips and her hands kneading his back beneath his shirt.  

Their coupling is so hurried, so desperate, that it seems like they have returned to that first night, her back pressed up against the kitchen wall, his face buried in her neck. As her climax roars through her, she bites his lip in revenge for all of this, and he groans, flinging his eyes open wide.

“I love you,” she pants into his ear as she feels him spilling inside her. “Don’t make me give you up.”

Later, as they stumble back to Winterfell in the gathering darkness, her hand lost in his, she repeats her plea, wanting his response for confirmation, comfort or both.

“No,” he says after a moment. “You’ll forget about it all soon.”

She smiles and nods and takes the assurance from his lips like the lie they both know it is.

It is only when he doesn’t return her call the next day, or the day after that, that she begins to wonder what he thought she would forget about.   


End file.
